ISRAEL’s army has killed two Palestinians in separate incidents in central Gaza, claiming that the men crossed the ceasefire’s yellow line near Israeli positions.
Hamas has recovered and handed over the body of an Israeli captive on Wednesday evening. Israel confirmed the delivery, but has not yet verified the identity.
This is as revelation by Israel’s top military lawyer, Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, that she leaked the footage of a gang rape of a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman military detention centre in 2024 has shaken the country’s political and media establishment.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – whose leadership of the genocidal war on Gaza has drawn global condemnation called the leak “perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the State of Israel has experienced”.
Critics of Netanyahu’s view come from establishment voices desperate to defend the judiciary and state institutions, which they believe Netanyahu and his allies are exploiting the leak to undermine.
Lost amid headlines fuelled by the leak’s admission is the gang rape of the Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman on July 5, 2024. The attack was so brutal that the man was admitted to hospital with what the Israeli daily Haaretz revealed was a ruptured bowel, severe anal and lung injuries, and broken ribs – injuries that later required surgery.
“It’s a huge story in Israel, but you won’t see the word ‘rape’ anywhere in it,” Orly Noy, editor of the Hebrew language Local Call, told Al Jazeera. “The contextualisation of the story is entirely different here than anything you or I might see.”
Instead of focusing on the rape and the ongoing legal proceedings against the five suspects, the story has instead centred on Tomer-Yerushalmi and those accused of helping her cover up the leak.
Speaking on Israeli television on Saturday night, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, Energy Minister Eli Cohen, told viewers that Tomer-Yerushalmi was “supposed to be the bulletproof vest, the protector, of the [Israeli military] soldiers”.
“Instead of that, she stabbed them in the back,” he said about the lawyer who leaked footage of soldiers appearing to rape a prisoner. “In this case, we are talking about treason.”
Defence Minister Israel Katz was no less damning, releasing at least seven statements targeting the military attorney in a week and accusing her of participating in “blood libel” against the five alleged rapists.
The former chief military advocate had been the subject of political pressure and accusations of covering up the source of the leak since the first reports of the rape emerged in August 2024.
That pressure continued to build, culminating in the announcement from Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara in early October of an investigation into the source of the leak.
On Friday, November 1, Tomer-Yerushalmi resigned and admitted that she had been the source of the leak. Two days later, she was reported missing for several hours following the discovery of what friends and family worried was a suicide note, which prompted a large-scale search.
Within hours of being found safe, Tomer-Yerushalmi was arrested, and the suicide note was dismissed by Israeli prosecutors as a ploy. She has been charged with multiple offences, including fraud, breach of trust, obstruction of justice, and abuse of office.
Since Sunday, police have also arrested the military’s former chief prosecutor, Colonel Matan Solomosh, on suspicion of helping Tomer-Yerushalmi cover up the leak. There have also been suggestions that the attorney general and her staff may have been involved.